Time to Murder and Create

by Lawrence Block

Page 19

 

  I let my mind wander with all these thoughts because there were other thoughts I wanted to avoid, but after half an hour I turned off the shower and toweled myself off and picked up the phone and told them to hold my calls, and to put me down for a wake-up call at one sharp.

  Not that I expected to need the call, because I knew I wasnt going to be able to sleep. All I could do was stretch out on the bed and close my eyes and think about Henry Prager and how I had murdered him.

  * * *

  HENRY Prager.

  John Lundgren was dead and I had killed him, had broken his neck, and it did not bother me at all, because he had done everything possible to earn that death. And Beverly Ethridge was being grilled by the police, and it was very possible that they would wind up with enough on her to put her away for a couple of years. It was also possible that she would beat it, because there probably wasnt all that much of a case, but either way it didnt matter much, because Spinner would have his vengeance. She could forget about her marriage and her social position and cocktails at the Pierre. She could forget about most of her life, and that didnt bother me either, because it was nothing she didnt deserve.

  But Henry Prager had never killed anybody, and I had pressured him enough to make him blow his brains out, and there was really no way I could justify that. It had bothered me enough when Id believed him guilty of murder. Now I knew he was innocent, and it bothered me infinitely more.

  Oh, there were ways to rationalize it. Evidently his business had turned sour. Evidently he had made a lot of bad financial judgments recently. Evidently he had been up against several different kinds of walls, and evidently he had been a marginal manic-depressive with suicidal tendencies, and that was all well and good, but I had put extra pressure on a man who was in no position to handle it and that had been the last straw, and there was no rationalizing my way out of that one, because it was more than coincidence that he had picked my visit to his office to put the gun in his mouth and pull the trigger.

  I lay there with my eyes closed and I wanted a drink. I wanted a drink very badly.

  But not yet. Not until I kept my appointment and told an up-and-coming young pederast that he didnt have to pay me a hundred thousand dollars, and that if he could just fool enough of the people enough of the time he could go right ahead and be governor.

  BY the time I was done talking to him, I had the feeling he might not make bad governor at that. He must have realized the minute I sat down across the desk from him that it would be to his advantage to listen to what I had to say without interrupting. What I had to say must have come as a complete surprise to him, but he just sat there looking absorbed, listening intently, nodding from time to time as a way of punctuating my sentences for me. I told him that he was off the hook, that he had never really been on it, that it had all been a device designed to trap a killer without washing other peoples dirty laundry in public. I took my time telling him, because I wanted to get it all said on the first try.

  When I was done, he leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling. Then he turned his eyes to meet mine and said his first word.

  "Extraordinary. "

  "I had to pressure you the same as I had to pressure everyone else," I said. "I didnt like it, but it was what I had to do. "

  "Oh, I wasnt even feeling all that much pressure, Mr. Scudder. I recognized that you were a reasonable sort of man and that it was only a question of raising the money, a task which did not seem by any means impossible. " He folded his hands on the desk top. "Its hard for me to digest all of this at once. You were quite the perfect blackmailer, you know. And now it seems you were never a blackmailer at all. Ive never been more pleased at being gulled. And the, uh, photographs-"

  "Theyve all been destroyed. "

  "Im to take your word for that, I take it. But isnt that a silly objection? Im still thinking of you as a blackmailer, and thats absurd. If you were a blackmailer, Id still have to take your word that you hadnt retained copies of the pictures, it would always come to that in the end, but since you havent extorted money from me to begin with, I can hardly worry that you will do so in the future, can I?"

  "I thought of bringing you the pictures. I also figured I might get hit by a bus on the way over here, or leave the envelope in a cab. " Spinner, I thought, had worried about getting hit by a bus. "It seemed simpler to burn them. "

  "I assure you, I had no desire to see them. Just the knowledge that they cease to exist, thats all I need to feel very much better about things. " His eyes probed mine. "You took an awful chance, didnt you? You could have been killed. "

  "I almost was. Twice. "

  "I cant understand why you put yourself on the spot like that. "

  "Im not sure I understand it myself. Lets say I was doing a favor for a friend. "

  "A friend?"

  "Spinner Jablon. "

  "An odd sort of person for you to select as a friend, dont you think?"

  I shrugged.

  "Well, I dont suppose your motives matter very much. You certainly succeeded admirably. "

  I wasnt so sure of that.

  "When you first suggested that you might be able to get those photographs of me, you couched a blackmail demand in terms of a reward. Rather a nice touch, actually. " He smiled. "I do think you deserve a reward, however. Perhaps not a hundred thousand dollars, but something substantial, I should say. I dont have much cash on me at the moment-"

  "A check will be fine. "

  "Oh?" He looked at me for a moment, then opened a drawer and took out a checkbook, the large sort with three checks to the page. He uncapped a pen, filled in the date, and looked up at me.

  "Can you suggest an amount?"

  "Ten thousand dollars," I said.

  "It didnt take you long to think of a figure. "

  "Its a tenth of what you were prepared to pay a blackmailer. It seems a reasonable figure. "

  "Not unreasonable, and a bargain from my point of view. Shall I make it out to cash or to you personally?"

  "Neither. "

  "Pardon me?"

  It wasnt my province to pardon him. I said, "I dont want any money for myself. Spinner hired me and paid me well enough for my time. "

  "Then-"

  "Make it payable to Boys Town. Father Flanagans Boys Town. I think its in Nebraska, isnt it?"

  He put the pen down and stared at me. His face reddened slightly, and then either he saw the humor in it or the politician in him took over, because he put his head back and laughed. It was a pretty good laugh. I dont know if he meant it or not, but it certainly sounded authentic.

  He made out the check and handed it to me. He told me I had a marvelous sense of poetic justice. I folded the check and put it in my pocket.

  He said, "Boys Town indeed. You know, Scudder, thats all very much in the past. The subject of those photographs. It was a weakness, a very disabling and unfortunate weakness, but its all in the past. "

  "If you say so. "

  "As a matter of fact, even the desire is completely over and done with, the particular demon exorcised. Even if it were not, I would have no difficulty in resisting the impulse. I have a career thats far too important for me to place in it jeopardy. And these past few months I have truly learned the meaning of jeopardy. "

  I didnt say anything. He got up and walked around a little and told me all the plans he had for the great State of New York. I didnt pay too much attention. I just listened to the tone, and I decided I believed he was sincere enough. He really wanted to be governor, that was always obvious, but he seemed to want to be governor for reasonably good reasons.

  "Well," he said at length, "I seemed to have found an opportunity to make a speech, havent I? Will I be able to count on your vote. Scudder?"

  "No. "

  "Oh? I thought that was rather a good speech. "

  "I wont vote against you, either. I dont vote. "

  "Your duty as a citizen, Mr. Scudder. "

 
; "Im a rotten citizen. "

  He smiled broadly at that, for reasons that escaped me. "You know," he said, "I like your style, Scudder. For all the bad moments you gave me, I still like your style. I even liked it before I knew the blackmail pose was a charade. " He lowered his voice confidentially. "I could find a very good place for someone like you in my organization. "

  "Im not interested in organizations. I was in one for fifteen years. "

  "The Police Department. "

  "Thats right. "

  "Perhaps I stated it poorly. You wouldnt be part of an organization per se. Youd be working for me. "

  "I dont like to work for people. "

  "Youre contented with your life as it is. "

  "Not particularly. "

  "But you dont want to change it. "

  "No. "

  "Its your life," he said. "Im surprised, though. You have a great deal of depth to you. I should think you would want to accomplish more in the world. I would think you would be more ambitious, if not for your own personal advancement then in terms of your potential for doing some good in the world. "

  "I told you I was a rotten citizen. "

  "Because you dont exercise your right to vote, yes. But I would think-Well, if you should change your mind, Mr. Scudder, the offer will hold. "

  I got to my feet. He stood and extended his hand. I didnt really want to shake hands with him, but I couldnt see how to avoid it. His grip was firm and sure, which boded well for him. He was going to have to shake a lot of hands if he wanted to win elections.

  I wondered if hed really lost his passion for young boys. It didnt matter much to me one way or the other. The photos Id seen had turned my stomach, but I dont know that I had all that much moral objection to them. The boy whod posed for them had been paid, and undoubtedly knew what he was doing. I didnt like shaking hands with him, and he would never be my choice for a drinking buddy, but I figured he wouldnt be too much worse in Albany than any other son of a bitch who would want the job.

  Chapter 18

  It was around three when I left Huysendahls office. I thought of calling Guzik and finding out how they were doing with Beverly Ethridge, but I decided to save a dime. I didnt want to talk to him, and I didnt much care how they were doing anyway. I walked around for a while and stopped at a lunch counter on Warren Street. I didnt have an appetite, but it had been a while since Id had anything to eat, and my stomach was starting to tell me I was mistreating it. I had a couple of sandwiches and some coffee.

  I walked around some more. Id wanted to go to the bank where the data on Henry Prager was tucked away, but it was too late now, they were closed. I decided Id do that in the morning so that I could destroy all that material. Prager couldnt be hurt any more, but there was still the daughter, and I would feel better when the stuff Spinner had willed to me had ceased to exist.

  After a while I got on the subway, and got off at Columbus Circle. There was a message for me at the hotel desk. Anita had called and wanted me to call her back.

  I went upstairs and addressed a plain white envelope to Boys Town. I enclosed Huysendahls check, put a stamp on the envelope, and, in a monumental expression of faith, dropped the letter in the hotels mail chute. Back in my room, I counted the money Id taken from the Marlboro man. It came to two hundred and eighty dollars. Some church or other had twenty-eight dollars coming, but at the moment I didnt feel like going to a church. I didnt really feel like much of anything.